Shade
by rayningnight
Summary: "I don't exist, and I don't care to, anyway." The first time, Harry's sure it's just coincidence. The second time, Harry's sure it — he — isn't. And in the times that follow, Harry still doesn't quite realize how befriending his mysterious guardian is going to reshape the world and beyond. Time/Dimension Travel. GEN.
1. Meetings

**Summary: **"I don't exist, and I don't care to, anyway." The first time, Harry's sure it's just coincidence. The second time, Harry's sure it — _he_ — isn't. And in the times that follow, Harry still doesn't quite realize how befriending his mysterious guardian is going to reshape the world and beyond. Time/Dimension Travel. GEN.

**Disclaimers:** Rights for J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury for _Harry Potter_. Acclaim for _Ghost _by _cywscross_ for inspiration. (If you like Naruto, you MUST check out her awesome work!)

**Warnings**: GEN, Rated T [12+]. Remember, this is a child's point of view at the start; many things are going to be exaggerated.

**Author's Note: **So I've fallen back into the HP universe... Sorry my KHR fans...

* * *

—**Shade—**  
_by rayningnight_

* * *

**I.**

The first time, Harry's sure it's just coincidence. Or luck — luck that's finally rubbed off on his terribly unlucky self.

Harry dozes while running on auto-pilot, weeding and clipping what needs to be weeded and clipped at this not-evening-not-nighttime hour when cats stalk through twilight and crickets chirp happily. Secretly, he thinks Aunt Petunia only sends him out at this time because she's too lazy to do the gardening in the morning with the wet dew when she could be sleeping into the warm afternoons (not, as she usually says to the neighbours, to 'discipline' him).

It isn't hard to think so. She purses her lips thin whenever he helps with dish washing or laundry folding, while she smiles warmly at Dudley at every hour, even when he breaks the best china set or has thrown his _really_ expensive teddy out the second-floor window.

He's happy, though, since Aunt Petunia at least calls him "Harry," instead of "Boy," like Uncle Vernon, even though she only calls him that when she wants some help with chores.

Sometimes, he wonders to himself if his Aunt and Uncle and cousin —_relativesbloodfamily— _even love him, and if not, why? _Why_ is he here when no one wants him to be?

Losing himself to his thoughts and the garden's sweet-smelling plants and the musty air of now-drizzling June rain, Harry, being seven (almost eight!) years old and still in need ten or eleven hours of sleep (_so _so_ drowsy_) thinks he should let his eyes rest for a moment — just one! — before his nodding off bed-head suddenly falls into an equally bed-headed bush.

And of _course _it has to be the _rose_ bush that he's half-started trimming.

Yelping with eyes luckily protected by round glasses, Harry narrowly dodges the dropped clipper and instantly pulls away; sadly, his stupid hair has made an acquaintance with Aunt Petunia's prized pastel-yellow rose bush — not that he _or _Aunt Petunia would want them to be close in the first place — and now there's a thousand needles and thorns and evil pokey _things _in his face.

Harry hisses painfully and grapples with the stems before flinching back his palms, curling bloodied fingers around soft blades of grass and dirt underneath the plants. His face is probably just as cut and maimed, though he can't be sure, his eyes being shut and all. Suddenly he wonders, absurd and optimistic given the circumstances, if he'll have "battle scars" just like King Arthur or Hercules in those fairy tales Ms Meyers has been reading to them before recess last week.

Futilely, he tries to free himself again (and again and _again_) before Aunt Petunia comes to check like she usually does minutes (or hours) after the street lamps flicker on. But his hands _hurt _and it's painful and burning and they're so sticky and wet and he can't help thinking this watery stuff is _blood _which is _in him _and is _not supposed to come out!_

Burning tears are barely restrained — Harry _refuses _to cry; he's had _worse _than this — and he decides he _hates _roses, _hates _this whitish, buttery-pale yellow and will never ever wear that awful colour again in his life. He'll be happy if he'll never see the stupid stuff again.

Still struggling and not knowing what to do, Harry wonders if he should get the clippers and clip off the stalks — but no, he can't, because then he'll be cutting Aunt Petunia's oh-so-_pretty_ flowers and she'll glare at him or scream at him _more _if he does that to her precious pricey plant that's an _awful_ colour and he'll be locked in the cupboard again and won't be allowed food for a couple of days and will be sent for time-outs and detentions for missing school _again—_

It feels like hours pass as he thinks and sobs without waterworks and cries without sound; he's learned crying loudly leads to Very Bad consequences, unlike Dudley's ice cream and crisps — and when he thinks he can't take this anymore, and there's this weird feeling in him that usually happens when some _funny business_ is inevitable — suddenly he's free with one last half-hearted tug, just as Aunt Petunia's shrill voice cries for him to get inside as the rainfall suddenly comes down in showering bullets.

Harry blinks, looking at his hands, which are miraculously _not painful _and _not burning _and cleaned off, as if a Mr Clean eraser wiped them gone like grime in the bathtub. He runs his fingers through his scalp for thorns and is astounded by the silky feel and _un_tangles — there's almost _no _jumbles or knots, even less than when he has time to brush his bushy curls to something less gravity-defying — and he looks up right then, catching a pair of piercing green and a black silhouette jump the fence and stalk into the raining night.

Again, he blinks, wondering what—

"_Boy! Get in bed, NOW!"_

With unbridled speed, Harry swipes the clippers, stows them into the garden shed, and stumbles inside.

* * *

**II.**

The second time, Harry's sure it — _he_ — isn't.

A coincidence, chance, or luck, that is.

Dudley and his gang are chasing him for what feels like _hours _ever since class ends for lunch. It's only after sneaking and weaving through the school courtyard — overlooked by peer-pressured kids and unseen by the far-off Prefects and oblivious adults — that Harry unluckily turns into a dead end with Dudley lumbering behind his heels. Fearing for his life and already feeling unavoidable blue-black marks, Harry leaps at a breakneck pace, hoping to jump over and behind the lunch room's massive garbage boxes.

Instead, he finds himself up on the school kitchen roof.

Now, don't get him wrong, Harry knows he's small and light enough to be blown down by a strong wind, but even _he _doesn't think some blast of air could possibly lift him up so high. Peering down the thousands and thousands of feet after the first hour passes and the bell rings and classes have begun, Harry wants to bawl even though he's not some crybaby _girl_.

He's _not._

And it's just random drops of September rain running down his cheeks, because Harry James Potter hasn't cried since he was four when he realized food and water and warmth came at a price and _he refuses to start now _so he _doesn't, _even if he's never liked birds or the swings or been on a plane before and would never, ever, _ever_ go up so high.

Harry's gotten used to large, sharp-teethed dogs and snarling cats and clawed bigger-than-and-uglier-than-cat-thingies, small, enclosed places and creepy-crawlies in the looming dark, freezing temperatures in winter and water and prickly plants that are nasty, a red/blue/purple-faced shouting Uncle/Aunt and other disapproving adults—Harry _knows_ he'll get used to extreme heights sooner or later.

Harry was _raised_ an adapter.

So he stands back from the edge, not wanting to get too far in case he misses a passer-by who'd maybe help him, but not wanting to be so close in case the _stupid wind _knocks him down instead of up. He ignores the biting gales and the light rain and the freezing cold. Another hour passes. Harry curls into a sitting position, hugging his jean-clad knees and breathing warmth into his small shaking hands. He's lucky he chose one of Dudley's too-small-for-him but too-big-for-Harry sweaters. The darkish green fabric is still warmish and soft, but still, Harry longs for his favourite fire-red wool, which is in the wash today, because warm colours are better than cool colours in the cold because they're _warm._

Green is not a warm colour.

Suddenly, as he notices the rained-on-cheeks have stopped flowing, Harry hears a pitter-patter before there's _buckets _of water hammering the ground like one of Dudley's fists or the pellet guns Piers has that always misses when trying to shoot him. Harry's soaked to the skin, and the hundred-holed shoes Aunt Petunia gave him two years ago aren't doing much to protect his now-wet socks and feet.

The bell rings, and with rising hope, Harry tries to scream for help — but his tongue is stuck behind frozen blue lips and he's fixed in this curled-cramped position and, car after car, each child from Dennis to Katy and Malcolm to Zuzia and even _Dudley's _gone, which squeezes his heart the most, if only because Uncle Vernon just does a half-hearted sweep through the kids, raises an eyebrow, and drives off, no questions asked.

He feels numb both figuratively and literally when Ms Meyers jogs through the rain to her car and the cook and the office ladies and the principal and the vice-principal follow suite.

Harry wonders as hours or days or years pass, if being fostered off into the cold midwinter like last December is worse than this; then he decides it _definitely_ isn't, if only because Aunt Petunia kicked him out with a thick, warm jacket and black boots when the Christmas banquet she was hosting got too crowded.

The wet and cold doesn't matter though, since he's immune to sickness, Harry knows; he's never ever gotten a fever or the flu or lice or whatever the other kids got. He can prove it if anyone checks his attendance roll-call since he hasn't missed too many school days or ever skips out (unless Uncle Vernon says so), even if his academics are all over the chart (because he has to doodle away one or two of his classes and 'forget' every second or third day of homework, 'else he'll do better than Dudley and _nobody _wants that).

But even years spent in this winter cold with almost-autumn clothing will affect him.

When fuzzy whiteness is blurring his eyesight worse than when his glasses are off, Harry thinks this may actually be the end. Like, sad-fairy-tale-story _End. _It's never taken this long for someone to find him before he's not able to take it anymore — usually Mrs Figg finds him outside the Dursleys' or Aunt Petunia remembers him when flicking the porch lights off — and it jolts him like the lightning above that this is _school _and _no one _helps him here, and it only just settles in that _everyone's gone home _and they won't be back until tomorrow — and even then, will they notice, if they haven't so far today?

He'd cry right now if he had the power to, but he wants to just jump into a hole and never move or feel or breathe wretched cold rain-filled air _ever_ again.

Harry can't feel his fingers or toes and that pins-and-needles sense in his left leg is completely gone along with any other feeling, and Harry doesn't have enough strength to change his once-comfortable position. As the whiteness turns to blackness, he thinks he sees an odd, tall humane smudge at his front and a pair of foreign-familiar, startling green and another flash of lightning and rolling thunder.

Before he completely drifts off, a jolt of lightning flashes once more and he suddenly feels warm; the smell of ozone and rainfall swathes him and Harry only then realizes he's in the embrace of somethi— wait, no — some_one_.

Harry looks up to untidy jet-black hair and startling green eyes that are just like his. Though there's a distinct lack of glasses, Harry still can't help whispering (incomprehensibly) through half-frozen lips as he meets this foreign-familiar face, "Are you my father, Mr Angel?" because this older, Harry-like man has this otherworldly _glow _behind him that sings with power and though he scents the rainfall, he can't feel the showers anymore, just this strange warmth, almost as if a small flame had been lit up in his stomach and is slowly making its way up through his bloodstream and heartstrings.

He ignores the Aunt Petunia-like voice in the back of his mind throwing scathing comments about never talking to strangers.

The tall man —_angel?_— ghosts a smile, though it looks strange, as if he hasn't smiled in a very long time or as if he's in pain, and it's all _wrongwrongwrong_, because there's this hard look in his almond-shaped eyes that are _just like Harry's_ that somehow make him feel better and worse at the same time. Wait, is that look directed at him? Did Harry offend him? Harry jolts at the thought, but before he can try to apologize, the man shakes his head.

"No, I'm not your dad or any sort of angel, kiddo," he says quietly in this low even tenor (or is it alto or bass or something else? Harry chose to doodle in music class instead of maths) and then the man's hand is suddenly over him, making Harry flinch and shrink into himself, but all the large (_not_ angel, but Harry can't help but think so when the man is _glowing_) man does is ruffle his wet hair and Harry's unsure whether to feel happy about it or not, but decides that yes, he does _kinda_ like the massaging feel and the human contact that doesn't aim to hurt.

After a moment, Harry throws caution to the wind and snuggles into the free, warm chest.

They sit there, under what Harry only realizes then is this unearthly transparent-bluish bubble protecting them from the harsh rain when his sight is no longer edged with whitish-black blurs, and then the calm silence — not awkward or tense, unlike the ones during an ordinary Dursley supper — is broken, because Harry can't hold it in anymore.

"_Thank you," _Harry says, with the most sincerity he's ever said with before. The Dursleys certainly never got more than a civil or silent tone.

And though he's unsure if he's thankful about the warmth or hug or rain or whatever, somehow, the man understands, because those identical green eyes soften, and this time when the man almost-smiles, just a quick quirk of the right side that lasts but a second, Harry feels something — his heart? His spirit? His soul? — lift because, this time, the smile seems less strained and painful and doesn't have that strange bitter edge, and Harry can't stifle his own cookie-eating grin.

They sit again in silence, calm and warm and _dry_, Harry realizes, when he wiggles his toes and doesn't feel damp socks. It's heavenly, Harry thinks, because his socks have never been this dry during the wet winter season.

"I really don't like the rain much," Harry muses aloud.

Amusement flashes in the man's bright eyes and the man looks skyward as Harry flushes, burrowing down into the man's arms to hide his face.

Then, again, there is calm, peaceful silence.

Hours may have passed, and still at the edge of the roof, Harry realizes he's lost his fright of heights and instead begins to actually _like _the feeling of being up high, just because of this not-angel 'man.' Angels fly, and men don't, but Harry's certain _Not-Angels_ can fly too, for how else could he have appeared before Harry? It's strange, Harry reflects, curled up in caring arms, because even as the sun goes down and the rain lets up and he's drifting off, this warm feeling in his heart never leaves, and there isn't any hunger or thirst, and Harry wonders if this Not-Angel-maybe-man white-lied just to make him feel better when Harry _knows_ Heaven is sure to be a whole lot better than living on Earth with the Dursleys.

A droplet lands on his cheek—

And Harry suddenly wakes up to his Aunt's shrill cry and that warmth in his chest is gone, and Harry wonders if it all was just a dream with a disappointed frown.

But, then he notices this really long golden chain hanging around his neck with a transparent-bluish raindrop-shaped stone resting at his stomach that was never there before when he sits up and it jostles. Harry smiles as he picks up the eyeball-sized gem.

Suddenly a prism of colours shines in an incredible rainbow flame.

"_Don't look down; without the rain, there would be no rainbow."_

Harry whips his head around at the foreign-familiar voice and he nearly hits his head under the stairs. Suddenly a thought jumps him and he scampers out of his cupboard and into the still-dewy yard, eyes zooming skyward like the 'man' had done while Harry had been busy hiding his face and staring at the ground.

There, melded in the dawn sunlight is a vivid arc of multicolour painted on morning blue, more vibrant, more brilliant, more breath-taking than any other rainbow Harry had ever seen.

Later, other neighbours gaze up with appreciation, and Number 5's painter brother tries a hand at capturing the sky in acrylic while Number 2's ex-photographer wife comes out of retirement.

Later, he wonders if he'll ever see that not-his-father-not-an-angel man ever again.

But he secrets that thought away as Uncle Vernon hollers for his omelette, no chives, more ham, more cheese and hears Dudley thundering down the stairs and _is Aunt Petunia cooking?_

And then, as the clock chimes seven, he wonders why the Dursleys don't question where he'd been after school yesterday or how he ended up _funnily _in the cupboard;

Or even why he's allowed breakfast today.

But he chooses to stay silent and eats quietly, rubbing a stone under his favourite dark green sweater and wishing for rain.

* * *

**III.**

His daily thoughts consist of herb collections, potted peonies, petunia flowers and hydrangea shrubs, and of how much dish soap is needed before the next bottle runs out; most of the time, he'll check how much homework Dudley completes the night before that he'll need to finish up by morning. Sometimes, he'll be smiling over his third grade teacher's sudden blue hair or about little shrunk sweaters and absently rubs a precious stone hidden underneath his shirt.

Today, he wonders about hair growth since he woke up, still dread-filled and instinctively running a hand over his head, knowing that the hairless—

But it's not hairless.

He blinks repeatedly, speechless, ruffling his black hair and feeling curls, not short, not long, but brushing his neck and over his forehead in its typical untidy bushiness. A grin stretches across his cheeks and he's so thrilled he forgets about Aunt Petunia until she sees him entering the kitchen with a bedhead full of hair.

She screeches and screams and it's shrill and tinged with some emotion Harry can't understand and it's worse than any horse or bird cry he's ever heard. He's bopped twice over the head with her hot frying pan that just deposited the eggs on Uncle Vernon's plate and he bites back a painful sob that's just caught by a grinning Dudley before he's ushered by the _hotpainfulburning _frying pan into his cupboard. Such freakishness must be punished, and he's told he'll be locked in for the rest of the day, no school and _certainly_ no food.

As the door slams shut, Harry dives for his cot's blanket, rummaging until he uncovers a half-filled plastic water bottle to twist open and pour over his blistering-hot, bump-forming head.

Harry releases a thankful sigh and sits down on the thin mattress, legs folding underneath him as he stares at his cupboard and zones out like he normally does to pass time during his punishments. There are only a handful of two-inch-tall green toy soldiers and a few broken crayons on the shelf, and they aren't very fun to play with after _so_ many years with them.

Underneath his mattress, peeking out half-way, there's an old _The Jungle Book _picture story and a ripped up _D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths, _but Harry's practically memorized them already (and is still itching to be rid of before the Dursley's find out his "borrowed" books that Dudley had placed in the trash). His sixth birthday had the Dursley's giving him an ugly (but thicker) quilt, and Harry's of course grateful for it… but… there really isn't much to _do_ in his cupboard with a whole day to pass.

So Harry sits there, his hand fondling his familiar droplet stone as seconds turning to minutes turning to hours perhaps, but the next time he snaps out of his daze and turns to wrap the blanket around him as his stomach growls something ferocious, his tugging meets resistance.

Harry blinks, rubs his eyes, and blinks again in shock.

There's a black cat on his bed.

A cat.

A _sleeping_ cat.

"How did you even get in here?" Harry wonders aloud.

The black cat lazily flutters its eyes open and Harry gasps.

Those eyes!

They were the same colour as his own and—

"_You remember me."_

Just like that rainbow incident, the low, even tenor (it's _definitely_ a tenor) reverberated in and around him, and Harry whips his head around, eyes wide in amazement and wonder.

"Where are you?"

The cat seemed to sneeze, catching Harry's attention, and Harry's young mind suddenly makes a very improbable realization as he remembers black blurs from raining days and stares into brilliant green eyes.

"You were the cat the whole time!" exclaims Harry.

When cat sneezes again, Harry can now clearly see that it was more laugh than sneeze, but cats don't laugh when amused (at least, Harry's quite sure they don't…), so the very human-like behaviour has to translate to _something _in cat-form Harry concludes.

"_Good deduction." _

Harry's face warms, for he's only ever praised in mathematics and art class (the only classes he actually puts effort in) and a thought strikes Harry out of nowhere.

"So you _weren't_ white-lying! You're a cat-man, not an angel man or normal man!" Harry says in amazement, thinking of the superheroes he sometimes sees on the telly when Dudley doesn't notice him dusting in the living room.

Suddenly the cat leaps off his cot and stand in the space before the shelf, slit-green eyes sweeping the area before suddenly enlarging into—

—into Harry!

Gobsmacked, Harry's arms turn to jelly and his head just misses the stairs above his bedstead. Quickly, he sits up in embarrassment, before just as suddenly, he feels a jolting pain on his head as it brushes a stair dip from his upward angle.

He hisses, and he only then remembers that Aunt Petunia had recently hit him with a frying pan.

Then other-Harry is sitting by his side, his hand suddenly on the sore spot and Harry flinches; but the hand doesn't send his nerves on fire — no — instead, it cools the area, like what he'd imagine a cold pack to feel like, and it brings as much relief as the comforting scent of sparks and showers now encasing him.

"Thank you," says Harry, belatedly feeling a sense of déjà vu from his own sincere tone.

The feeling doesn't leave when other-Harry does that half-quirk smile of his, just like before. The hand on his head then ruffles his hair, and Harry notices that this other-Harry is just slightly older, maybe nine or ten, so being teased like a younger brother isn't so strange.

At least… this is what he'd think different-aged siblings would treat each other like.

"Why're you a kid now anyway?" Harry blurts out before his cheeks flush when green eyes (too old, too wise) meet his own.

An eternity could've passed before other-Harry says, rather vaguely, as he stares at his hand, "Age is an issue of mind over matter." He fists his hand and shrugs. "If you don't mind, it doesn't matter."

Apparently it's a good enough response.

And it sounds familiar, Harry thinks, before coming to sudden realization. "I told Ms Meyers about that rainbow saying," he pipes up to fill in the silence and to make that faraway green gaze turn to Harry. "An English man wrote it. Some poet guy named Gilbert — K? — Chesterton. And the one you said just now… isn't that…" his brow furrows, "Mark Twain?"

Harry sees the proud glint in other-Harry's eyes, and he can't help but smile back and feel grateful for the annoying quote-session Ms Meyers had with him when she thought he found another interest other than art and maths, even though he'd been punished for being late after school. He vowed to do even better in English class, for both Ms Meyers and—

"What are you?" Harry asks then, realizing he'd never known the cat-man — wait, cat-_boy's_ name.

A hand runs through the boy's unruly hair, so like Harry's own, and Harry can only marvel at the foreign-familiar similarities between the two.

And then everything comes to a halt as he realizes his error.

"I-I meant—" _Who. _Not _what, _Harry wants to say as his face flushes crimson, but the words tumble and trip over his tongue, never fully making it out of his mouth except in sputters.

Then he notices the shaking in the boy's shoulders, and Harry's brow furrows in worry before—

The boy _laughs_, laughs hard, and it doesn't sound right, not at all, especially when the otherworldly sound is coming from such an ordinary looking boy. The voice is too deep, too rich, with a strange ethereal resonance that sounds like the echoes of a bottomless cave than that of a cramped cupboard.

"I am…" the boy pauses mid-chuckle, as if wondering how to word something particularly difficult, "I suppose, technically…" he trails off with a bitter, but resolute edge.

"I don't exist, and I don't care to, anyway."

And Harry's left flabbergasted as the boy fades _down_ into his shadow, the blackish-grey shade outlined by the overhead light bulb.

Harry's only a tad shamed to still wonder _what _the man was.

* * *

Happy Easter Weekend! I won't have time to post for Resurrection Sunday, so I hope you all enjoyed reading this for your day off (if you got one anyway...) as I've enjoyed writing and posting it! ...Hopefully my muse won't die off... like all my other stories... meh. I make no promises on when I update. _—rayningnight_

_PS: _If you see some spelling and/or grammatical errors, please tell me!


	2. Bonding

—**Shade—**  
_by rayningnight_

* * *

**IV.**

"I know you aren't my father."

"I thought we've already established that."

Harry's happy that he's able to understand words like 'established' now. He's only nine, and he feels special, knowing how to write and say words like establish and _établir_ and _constituendum_—

"Yeah but, well, I have proof — 'cause, well, y'see, I have these… dreams," his carefree tone takes a nosedive.

The man doesn't say anything, so Harry continues, carefully and cautiously. He's not sure how to word it, but he trusts the man more than anything and anyone in the world.

And he _has _to say something to explain the mess of his coverlet, and fallen toy soldiers scattered around the cupboard that the man didn't deign interest in when he appeared a quarter-hour ago, and has been carefully tiptoeing around and placing back onto shelves as Harry continues his assignments.

If he can't trust this man, the silent guardian who's been watching him in the shadows for nearly two years while his own blood relatives —_notnot_not_family— _stuff their son with sweets and affection…

"I see a man — wizard?— who pushes a redheaded woman through the door and near me, before there's this evil laughter and then the woman's suddenly begging for my life and she's hit with green light with some abracadabra spell and—"

"It's not abracadabra."

Harry's never told anyone, not _anyone, _about his dreams ever before. He's suspected for a while that his nightmares aren't simple figments of his imagination (they're too real, too vivid, too terrifying for him to just _make up_) and he wants to ask the man if—

"How do you know that?" he asks instead.

The man stays quiet, and after a while, Harry frowns and gives up. He wants to know. He does. But… there's something that makes him want to take a step back. "Ignorance is bliss," Thomas Gray once said, and Harry agrees wholeheartedly. Gnawing his lower lip, he continues with the conjugation assignment and he loses himself into connecting stems that it's almost out of the blue when the man says,

"It's _Avada Kedavra_."

Harry shivers involuntarily, but the feeling of terror and dread at the simple _name _of the spell won't leave. It echoes in his mind, exotic and dangerous, and it's scary_freaky_notright. _Avada Kedavra _sounds like a wolf in sheep's clothing, a monster hiding under a child's bed, masking behind childish fantasies and words like "open sesame" that mean things so much more sinister, more frightening—

He accepts the warm embrace of the man as he breaks into tremors, his pencil long since dropped and rolling away, only able to relax into the scent of burnt ozone and fresh rainfall by the seventh second mark.

The cruel laughter in his mind slowly dissipates with the sound of thunder outside.

* * *

**V.**

"But, look, look! It's done!"

He looks over Harry's chicken-scratch work to the left and the slapdash arrangement to the right and raises an eyebrow. Harry pouts.

"But I'm _bored_." Somehow he stretched the last word into five syllables. (It's a talent.) "Why can't I learn the other stuff? The _fun _stuff?"

The eyebrow is still raised and the face unimpressed.

Whinging at the Dursleys used to leave red, black, or blue marks on him but, strangely, whinging at the man is worse, as it turns out. There's no disappointment in that green gaze, just an unamused sheen, but Harry has this sense that there _could_ be, and that makes him feel …_bad_… about himself. After a minute of glowering, because Harry needs to convey the utter pointlessness of these assignments, Harry's turns back to his still-drying assignment and those stupid forks and knives. But something seems to occur to the man, because in a whirl of parchment, the man suddenly produces a handful of small rectangular pieces out of thin air.

The first card has a figure of ink black on off-white, the head resembling that of an egg with a serpentine body.

Oh.

Darn it. Another quiz.

"Umm," Harry winces, berating himself for the 'in-art-i-cu-late' monosyllable as his mind bends over backwards to try and just _remember_—

Light bulb. Fist to palm. "Ah! It's the Hydra, symbolizing the number nine!"

The man lowers his parchment and nods curtly, not smiling yet still giving off a proud aura. Harry basks in the unspoken praise in his belly-flopped position on his bed as the man shuffles through the parchment 'flashcards' and, flipping a blank one over, he taps the middle of the parchment piece. An inky mist spreads out from the centre and—

It's a realistic picture this time: a spidery beast with thick, reddish-brown hair.

"A Quintaped, obviously symbolizing the number five," Harry gestures the five furry legs with his free hand while a grin presses his chin into the palm of his propped arm. The man lifts an amused brow and is just opening his mouth—

Consecutive harsh knocks on his cupboard door interrupt them.

"Up! Get up! Now!"

—and the man's gone, parchment on the cot and silverware on the shelf vanished into shadows with him.

* * *

**VI.**

"Did you all just come together and decide on a universal language?" asks Harry, fascination dancing in his eyes.

The boa constrictor blinks at him, and Harry is quivering with excitement. This is so _wicked!_ Harry's sure glad he was shipped off with Dudley to the zoo, even with that really, really awkward silence in the car. Piers Polkiss had sat in the middle seat, and he'd left a good inch or two of distance between them, squishing into Dudley's fat side. Sometimes Harry can't tell if Piers hates him and therefore ignores him, or if he actually _can't_ see him—

Wait …isn't there some sort of Muggle repellent charm…?

Harry huffs and glances down at his Shadow. His secret.

_Was that _your_ doing?_

'Hatchling… you speak the language of snakes?' hisses the mottled-brown snake, startling Harry out of his thoughts.

He blinks twice before crowing in delight, 'You speak it too!' Harry would have clapped his hands in glee if he was the type to do so. 'All the garter snakes in the garden are still kids like me, or maybe younger, and none of them could speak but they could listen! They all understood what I was saying, I mean. I've been trying to teach them how to _pro-noun-ce_ stuff, and I think maybe their mama died or something and so they could learn to listen to Parseltongue, but couldn't actually speak it yet — y'know developing tongues and stuff…'

The boa constrictor reared, as if he could feel Harry's excitement and anticipation and sheer joy — oh, wait, is he Impelling?

Calling back his emotional overflow and raising his shields, Harry finds his centre… and then breaks out into a grin again.

'But, well, since your breed is from Brazil — it says so here on the sign, in the human language English,' Harry adds in explanation as he saw much confusion from the boa's eyes and body language, 'and well, since Shadow won't explain — I'm sure he knows, since he knows _everything — _well, I thought maybe I could ask you why all snakes could speak the same language when they still had to teach their young, and yet they all live on a different continents and—'

'_Amigo_… I speak _English Parseltongue_,' the boa pauses, letting that information sink in, 'and Magic has given snakes the ability to communicate and filter in human language around us, especially when we are young hatchlings. But when I was still in an egg, I …_absorb_ is the best term to use I suppose… so yes, I _absorbed_ some Portuguese Parseltongue from my mother's whisperings.' It's tongue flickered out, '_Eu falo muito pouco Português_.'

'Oh…' Harry blinks. Then he frowns, staring at the ground in consternation.

"Well that sucks. No wonder that Chinese Ratsnake in the Reptile House was looking at me like some loon… wait. But then how does a Wadjet speak English P—"

"You shouldn't hold a conversation with snakes in public, kit. Security cameras would catch you without me."

At the sound of the even tenor, Harry whirls and beams, and throws himself into wide arms already prepared for his happy attack.

A low chuckle. "And to answer your question, Wadjets may be Egyptian, but they're born with magic in their veins, like Runespoors and Basilisks and the rest. And unlike the average snake, they are also always colonizing in Wild Areas rooted in magic and untainted by Muggle industrialization." The man pauses, pushing him away slightly so Harry's able to crane his head up to meet the man's mirroring eyes. "Why do you think so many Dark wizards actually worked with Light wizards in the first days of the Ministry for the invisibility shields and phase wards to protect Wild Lands?"

"To, uh, protect them from Muggle nosiness I guess. All the magical islands, forests, marshes and lakes and stuff must be hidden from the Muggle scientists …right?"

"Yes, but Muggle scientists weren't so advanced back then." Then there's that dreadful oh-so-familiar smirk, and Harry scowls.

With a finger-flick at his lightning bolt scar, he fades into Harry's shadow. "Think. And when you have come to an answer, I'll tell you if you're right or wrong."

Harry stand there in silence, glaring at his Shadow, and he thinks he hears Dudley wailing in the Bird House down the hall. …Looks like they'll be going home soon.

'…You are a very interesting human hatchling,' there's a flicker of thin tongue, tasting, scenting, 'but your companion is even more interesting.'

Harry turns to the curious boa, rubbing his forehead from the finger-flick. The petulant scowl remains.

'You don't know the half of it.'

* * *

_Notes:_

This is unofficially a drabble series now. I'll be cross-posting it onto AO3, so either wait here for "long" chapters (always will have "three" drabble write-ups), or go over there for the pieces updated one after another. Although, as all you readers should know by now, my updates are really erratic. Like, either really short waits or really long waits depending on my muse and what life throws at me.


	3. Forward

—**Shade—**  
_by rayningnight_

* * *

**VII.**

As the snake shakes its head in an exasperated manner (Harry didn't realize before that snakes could even do that), a deafening shout behind Harry makes both of them startle.

"DUDLEY! MR. DURSLEY! COME AND LOOK AT THIS SNAKE! YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT IT'S DOING!"

Dudley waddles towards them as fast as he could (his watery eyes have completely dried up by the time he exits the Bird House hallway, and Harry thinks he should work on his crocodile tears; they aren't very convincing).

"Out of the way, you," he says, punching Harry in the ribs. Caught by surprise, Harry falls hard on the concrete floor with a cry of dizzying pain right as he lands on his funny bone. And without his semi-conscious tight hold on his magical core, Harry _feels_ the young, energetic tendrils once caged now breaking free and latching onto the glass of the boa's viewing pen because _it just felt like it_.

(Harry still hasn't quite tamed his core as well as the next young witch or wizard, and though the man, his Shadow, _says_ the more distinct the character your core has [**angry, **_bubbly, _gentle, _**sorrowful**_], the more powerful you will become, Harry really doesn't understand why _his _core has to be so _impulsive. _Harry's _always_ erred on the side of caution, ever since the day Dudley invented Harry Hunting as soon as they both could walk!

Harry doesn't understand why the man laughed so hard at that when he mentioned it in passing.)

And suddenly, when one second, Piers and Dudley are leaning right up close to the glass, the next, they're now leaping back with howls of horror — because _yes_ his magic oh-so-_helpfully_ decided that the glass front of the boa constrictor's tank needs to be vanished. As if it was some piece of bad décor.

(Harry really doesn't understand _why_ his magic is like that. Isn't the magical core supposed to represent the inner self or something? He knows he has quite a level head, thank you very much, and he'd neverjust randomly vanish/float/combust stuff! …okay, not without _purpose, _at least.)

Harry's going to keep calm and carry on. He's going to go with the flow. He's going to—

The snake uncoils and slithers out onto the floor and oh gosh, its head, it's body, it's length, and bloody hell, it's freakin' huge. Behind a glass, Harry didn't really notice, but with it now a centimetre away from Harry's splayed fingers on the concrete... waitwaiwaitwait, do snakes bite chunks off or swallow things whole or...?

(He dearly hopes his conversation with the boa will keep him friend-zoned instead of meal-zoned because he really doesn't want to find out.)

"Thanksss, amigo," the boa hisses as it slid swiftly past, eyes scanning down the hallways to the nearest open doors (and, _whew_, completely ignoring Harry). "Brazil, here I come!"

People throughout the reptile house scream and start running for the exits as they catch sight of the giant snake. The keeper of the reptile house seems to be in a state of shock. "But the glass," he keeps saying under his breath, just near enough for Harry to hear, "where did the glass go?"

Harry bites his lip and looks at his Shadow, and tries not to shrink into himself as there's now a man, _the_ man, crouching in front of him with pursed lips. (Harry wonders; didn't the man just mention that there were security cameras? Won't a twentyish year old appearing out of nowhere catch attention?)

He's disappointed him. Harry can just tell. Because they've been practising for years on his control, even in times of distress and sadness and anger and frustration, and today it just caught him off guard, but it was a mistake and he's been doing this for _years_ and his Hogwarts letter is supposed to come _this year_, and if he can't control his accidental magic when he could before, what does that tell the man?

Harry hangs his head in shame and waits for it. But instead of words of disappointment, the man simply sighs, pauses, and then ruffles Harry's head as if he were some sort of _dog_ that accidentally peed the picket fence instead of the fire hydrant.

(Harry quickly shoves that thought away. Oh, this is just _great_; Rolf's weirdness was actually _contagious._)

Still, it's an affectionate gesture. Harry furrows his brow and looks up.

"Wh—?"

"Mistakes are proof that you're trying, kit." The man lifts his left lip in the semblance of a quarter-smile. "I'm actually surprised it took so long for you to lose control. Merlin knows most kids have done worse than you." Then he flicks Harry's thunderbolt scar.

"Besides, I've said this before: don't _tame _your magic. It's not some pet animal. It's part of you, it _is _you, and like any impulsive, feisty brat, it wants to learn and play and tests its boundaries. Just… lead it. Nudge it to do what you _want. _Use intent. You've done well enough so far," and under his breath, looking over his shoulder at a screaming passer-by, "may as well start you wandless while you're still an overachieving little bugger."

Harry blinks, pauses as those words partially sink in, before a grin stretches his cheeks wide that 'ear-to-ear' wouldn't be much of an exaggeration.

That was practically a compliment! A _spoken_ compliment!

And, not one to let this go, Harry coaxes his rampant (still energetic) magic back from the surroundings, the saturated air now lifting, and tries to make — no, not make, _lead _— it to remake the glass. Harry closes his eyes and imagines glittery gold dust with green streaks (it's what Harry would suppose his magic to look like if it ever took physical form) scattered everywhere from his 'explosion' of accidental magic now coalescing into a stream and creating a flat, vertical surface…

Harry cracks one eye open.

A reflective sheen is caught in the light and Harry nearly shouts in glee at his accomplishment.

—Then the newly-conjured glass shatters into thousands of pieces and it's only luck that one particular jagged piece only cracked his right glasses' lens instead of his eyeball.

…The man beside him is deathly silent.

After a couple of seconds, Harry opens his mouth—

"Kit. I told you five minutes ago there were cameras."

Harry shuts his mouth, face flushing.

The man sighs but reluctantly pulls out a wand—wait. The man. Wand.

The man pulled out a wand.

Harry's _never _seen him use a wand before. The man usually only needed a flick of his wrist, a twitch of his finger, even just a _blink, _and it was like, _presto chango, _a basket or something would morph in place of a blanket.

But there it is: an ordinary looking stick, with a fire-like, bulb-like gnarl at the back-end and with an inch of knurled wood where the thumb and forefinger are; it sort of reminded Harry of Gandalf the Grey's staff, only shrunken to forearm-length and held upside down at thirty degrees and doing loopty-loops and swishes and flicks.

"…You're lucky I'm not the average day wizarding dad, because clean-up here would have taken _hours._"

Suddenly Harry's memories rearrange themselves — he _feels_ them rearrange themselves in his _mind_ — and the shattering glass one moment ago now happened at the exact moment Dudley and Piers had leapt away and the snake was freed and the screaming started and—

But Harry has a second set of memories that showed _he _made the glass vanish and explode at _two different times._

A hand ruffles his head, and the fake memories are cleanly erased and Harry's world becomes right-side-up again.

"You okay, kit?"

Harry blinks. Once. Twice.

"Bloody hell, that was _weird._"

He gets cuffed on the head and thrown a scathing comment about _manners this_ and _children that_ and Harry ducks down, face warming as one particular moment flashes in his mind as the man berates him with a stern face but amused green eyes just like his.

…_I wonder if it's okay to call him father…_

* * *

**VIII.**

Harry isn't surprised when the Dursleys blame the Shattering Glass Incident on him. See, they had clear evidence against him: a) Dudley said he was close to the glass, b) Dudley said he was talking to the snake, and c) Dudley said he was out to ruin his birthday.

And of course, d) Piers agreed.

_Uncle Vernon waited until Piers was safely out of the house before starting on Harry. He was so angry he could hardly speak. He managed to say, "Go — cupboard — stay — no meals," before he collapsed into a chair and Aunt Petunia had to run and get him a large brandy._

Harry still doesn't think, "Dudley said…" is any sort of incriminating evidence, but Harry kept his mouth shut, because he really didn't want to make an acquaintance with Aunt Petunia's frying pan again.

Or the brandy bottle, once it emptied down Uncle Vernon's throat.

"Well, even if Grandsire doesn't win _Worst Guardians of the Century _like them, he's not exactly a shining example of one either. He's like an old totem pole that doesn't know it needs a new paint job — or even an added head to its hierarchy. I'm lucky Nanna's here to colour some sanity into him. Crimsons with a hint of cobalt, just to be on the safe side."

Harry looks over at Rolf with a blank expression.

"…Pardon?"

"Oh, yeah, you've never travelled out of the Europe — right, well totem poles are made by cultures of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest—"

"No," Harry waves his hands, shaking his head helplessly, "never mind. I think I get it." Sorta. Maybe. Well, no, not really, but it's best not to ask for any justification from Rolf, because, most of time, you'll end up in a state of befuddlement than enlightenment. He could probably explain how a toaster worked in a perfectly reasonable manner without an ounce of logic in actual context. Heck, for all he knows, Rolf would say, that the power of the stars were trapped inside the metal contraption running inside mini-hamster wheels, face totally and utterly serious, that he'd would be hard pressed _not_ to believe him.

Harry blinks. And sighs as he slumps over.

Great, Rolf's contaminated his _mind_ — because even Harry knows this kind of example is hard to think up without it _actually_ happening.

Harry glances over at Rolf, with his dark skin and dark hair and dark eyes, he practically melts into the night-time fields around him doused in shade and shadow. And it's great, especially when he's purposefully decked out in camouflage, binoculars held to his eyes as he tries to search for any Porlocks in the neighbour's barnyard amongst the horses or in the hayshed a little ways down the road.

Harry pauses.

It technically takes a little over two hours to drive to Dorset from Surrey (or half an hour if Stan Shunpike is driving). But when his shadow lengthened, the man appeared in Harry's cupboard after he was thrown into it by Uncle Vernon and told him in a matter-of-fact tone, "They'll be leaving you in here for a few days with the occasional bathroom break, and slice of bread and water after the second night, so would you like to visit the Scamander Family with me instead?"

Harry quickly agreed of course …and he soon learned a new mode of transportation other than the Knight Bus: Apparition.

("Won't they check in on me? And, erm, what about school?" Harry asks inquisitively, as he gets his bearings from the teleportation.

"Yes," the man replies, dusting air off his shoulders, "but I left an illusion there, with other enchantments to eat the food and go to the washroom. And school… hmmm… well, I suppose I could go inform your teacher discreetly of your absences. You wouldn't have missed much even if I hadn't come," he said, as if he knew exactly how it'd pan out.

Harry's learned it was best not to ask questions about things the man should and shouldn't know.)

Rolf suddenly speaks up. "Hey, I think I can see some neighs from them in the distance. Sneaky purples, giggling greens… Bloody Porlocks think they can get the best of us, eh?"

Harry simply nodded his head and followed Rolf's lead.

This was actually really similar to the time he first met Rolf, now that Harry thought about it as he army-crawled with his camo-clad friend.

Harry met the Scamander family by accident two years ago, on one of the man's excursions around the United Kingdom. Harry had wanted to see a real Pegasus for Christmas (he could now follow how their discussion about Santa Claus and reindeer led to that, now that he thought about it), so the man took him over to the ranch in the shadow of Mount Pelée in France in early spring, in place of a physical Christmas gift. And with a bit of Muggle make-up to cover Harry's forehead, and making himself look like an obscure wizard age of thirtyish, and add the fact that they were in _France, _well, no one had recognized the two.

Well, no one but the Scamander family — Rolf had walked right up into Harry's face and asked, with a very serious look and narrowed eyes, if he'd been possessed by a shadow spirit because how else could he have survived the Killing Curse and have a lookalike gliding by right next to him when, clearly, it was stated in the newspapers that most of the Potter family was _dead—_

An elderly woman came rushing in and pulled the boy to the side, blushing and apologizing profusely. She'd then whacked the boy on the head because she's taught him tact, boy, and how to act in polite company, and _damnit_, did her husband make all her hard work on their sole grandson go down the drain _again_—

Then she froze, her gnarled hand which had been clutching her silver shawl in a white-knuckled grip at her right arm now rubbing and pulling at the fabric and Harry noted that she was breathing in short breaths and —_ewww_ she _puked_ onto the grass by the side.

The rest thereafter was a blur.

Later, Harry learned Porpentina Scamander was lucky to have been right next to his Shadow, because apparently, she'd had a heart attack, and apparently the man had known exactly what to do (— and that was _not _to Apparate to the nearest hospital, as one of the freaked out bystanders had exclaimed, because that'd have made things worse).

Later, Harry learned that the man, though not a certified Muggle doctor or Mediwizard or, heck, Potions Master, he probably _could_ be one, because why else would he always be prepared with every magical potion known to wizard (and then some) he just happened to have in his (extra-extra-large compartment) pockets?

"_Constance vigilance, Harry," said the man, as he packed away his things and flicked Harry's scar _again_. "It never hurts to be safe than sorry."_

Later, Harry learned the Scamander family felt they couldn't thank the man enough, and had invited him to visit their home back in Dorset whenever (they'd recognized the British accent in both Harry and the man's voices), and that one visit led to three more and soon it was abnormal if Harry and him didn't drop by, at least biweekly.

Rolf's bizarre rationality and rude bluntness — and severe lack of the notion of personal privacy — eventually grew on Harry after a couple of weeks in forced company [It was Rolf's company or the Dursleys and his cupboard. …Really, is that even a choice?] and after a few weeks, Harry thinks this is what it's like to have a weird cousin you have to visit and hang out with and don't really acknowledge in public.

…and then, of course, Harry's the laughingstock of fate, because, actually, erm… yeah, Rolf's Harry's fourth cousin through his father's side….

—"…and what's with you today? You've been going off and on to La La Land the whole day," a voice breaks through his thoughts. "And I can't help but feel put out when you don't even bring back a souvenir."

Harry shakes away the memories and stares back at dark eyes and a sudden grin.

"Oh, wait, let me guess — you inhaled some fumes from some Remedy for Recollection or Memory Mixture that your …guardian or long-lost-brother or uncle or whatever — what's his name, actually? — made you do for homework again," Rolf rolls his eyes. "Merlin, he gives you more homework than your Muggle school does!"

Harry nods, not even bothering to wonder how Rolf knows the going-ons of his lifestyle.

"Actually, I'm kinda curious. What is he?" Rolf asks, putting down his camoculars and sitting up on the tall grass. "I notice that when you talk, it's all shades of green and gold, but no matter what tone, that guy's _pitch black. _It's really weird. Family's supposed to have same differences to everyone else! And obviously you two are family… right?"

"He's…" Harry shrugs. "He's family, yeah. I dunno what kind though. I guess I _want _him to be my dad since I'm sure we can't be brothers, and I figure being my father is better than my uncle or cousin."

After a few seconds, Harry realizes Rolf's looking at him funnily, dark brows furrowed under the faint moonlight.

"If he's your family, does it matter what exactly he is? He can be pitch black and you can be ...pitch green! I mean, if it's really diluted, I can sometimes see you talk with some darker tinges, anyway, like you're trying to copy him or something, so maybe he's your …no, wait, that wouldn't work, because the Potter tree can't be that big …but he's never…"

Harry tuned out Rolf's chatter after the first sentence, because he realizes — _no. _It doesn't matter. It never does. It never will.

Because the man is _family. _Real family. Family where it matters most. Shadow represents care. Love. Happiness.

"—and, oh, I think the man in the moon's climbed too high now. See the blue cricket sounds? We should probably go back—"

Home.

"You know, Rolf, sometimes you can be a bit of a genius."

"Well of course," Rolf nods sharply, cutting off his own rambling.

"…then again, Oscar Levant said, 'There's a fine line between genius and insanity,' so it's not that surprising you of all people—hey!" Harry rubs his forehead, right at his now-stinging scar.

"Huh. It does shut you up," Rolf flexes his fingers and then a sudden, manic grin dissuades Harry of any hope of retaliation.

No, it's best to do a tactful retreat… really, it's getting really late anyway, right…?

"Hey, get back here you coward!"

* * *

**IX.**

"What's your name?"

It never occurred to Harry for years (which is kind of embarrassing actually), but ever since Rolf mentioned it, Harry can't help but wonder. The man is his Shadow, like a father, like a brother, like a _really_ close relative, and the guy's almost _always_ older than Harry… so he never does take the time to actually think about _who_ the man is.

But Rolf's question plagues him for a while. And then, today, the man decides to be a preteen, maybe-probably-_about_ a year or two older than Harry himself. They've been up cleaning the house for a while — and Harry can't think of calling him "the man" in his head, anymore, when he's just a _boy_ right now, which then leads to thoughts of _what else_ to call him— and then his thoughts wander to the man's title, then his name, and it's a cycle all over again.

Aunt Petunia took Dudley over to some back garden tea party with the other housewives up at number eight's house since Gordon and Malcolm would be there with their mothers. Uncle Vernon's upstairs napping on his day-off, snoring away the hours with his bedroom telly left on; his fat fingers grasp the remote every so often, and he accidentally changes the channel every few minutes. For all intents and purposes, the pair of wizards are alone in the house, so the man — _boy_ — **Shadow**, is able to come out without protest.

"Oh," the boy says, pausing to snaps his fingertips to vanish the rubbish in Harry's dustbin. "It never did occur to me, but I've never actually told you to call me anything in particular, have I?" He blinks suddenly, as if a thought had hit him like lightning. "Nor have I actually given you a rundown of who I am — and — …Merlin. It's been years. How did I miss that…?"

It's a rhetorical question, so Harry simply shrugs and puts away the dustpan.

"You… what've you been calling me in your head then?" he asks curiously.

Harry stares at him uncomprehendingly, like a deer caught in headlights before he quickly ducks his head behind the broom he's now got clutched in his hands with embarrassment.

"Well… I've wanted to call you 'Dad' for a while—butIquicklychangedmymind!" Harry quickly tacks on as the man's eyes fly wide in surprise and alarm. A silent moment passes, and then there's something strange, something _like_ amusement-but-not-quite glittering in his bright eyes, making Harry think that fluttering laughter's been caught in them.

Harry takes a breath, inhales, exhales — the bulldozes right through before he'll lose his nerve.

"You have black hair and green eyes and you look like me. You're family. Don't give me that look, even _I _can tell you're family, even with your habit of changing age like Aunt Petunia changing clothes or swapping shoes," he gets small smile for that line as Harry continues, his face a bit hot, "and I realized — well, Rolf pushed me to realize if I'm to be honest — that none of that stuff matters. You're _family_. You're _my_ family and teacher and close confidant and it doesn't _matter_ if you're technically my uncle or father or great-great-great grandpa for all I know! Because no matter who you are, you'll always have a space in my heart."

A pause, a look, a twitch. This time, Harry gets a light laugh, and it's such a rare thing to hear; soft and bright and nothing like his usual sardonic chuckle, and it's _so_ totally worth saying those mushy-gushy girly lines Harry's bastardized from one of Aunt Petunia's favourite evening soap operas.

Even though he's only a bit taller than Harry, his Shadow still manages to ruffle Harry's bird's nest of hair without difficulty.

"And you'll always have one in mine, kit," he smiles and adds a quick flick to Harry's scar, as of habit. "And just for all that, I think I'll give you a hint to who I am — in relation to you, that is."

Harry perks up. "Really? Reallyreally_really_?"

"Yes. I am… I'm…" the boy pauses mid-chuckle, as if wondering how to word something rather challenging. The fluorescent lights give off strange shadows onto him, accenting under the cheekbones and slanting over eyes, bringing a mysterious air to him. Harry wonders if it's all been staged that way somehow, because there's no way all that could be coincidence. "I suppose I'm your shadow …your shade…" he trails off, and a _Look_ takes over his face. And then he quirks his lip, as if he realized something particularly funny.

Harry pouts. _Duh _of course he's his Shadow — though Shade does sound cooler… — and could he just get a move on?

Suddenly a wry grin overtakes his _Shade's_ face, as his attention is caught by Harry's partially-hidden books that are just peeking out of the shelf in the cupboard under the stairs. Harry really should fix those up, or else he'll forget, and then Uncle will take not only the ones …_borrowed_ from Dudley but the new ones he got from—

"You may call me …Hades."

Harry blinks, feeling frozen. Only a second passes. "You… —_Hades? _…as in the ancient Greek god of death and the freakin' _underworld_, Hades?"

His lip twitches. "That's the one. It all ties back together, as I've suddenly realized — it's an anagram of shade," explains newly-dubbed Hades, and Harry notices there's a strange tone to the word _anagram_, as if the word tastes a little bitter, a little rotten on the tongue, "and because 'Harry' starts with the same first two letters," and here, Harry's halts as he blushes at the thought of Hades naming himself after _him_, "and also …well," and now Hades looks sheepish, which is the strangest expression Harry's ever seen on his typically stoic and solemn mentor, "there are quite a few more reasons why I go by this name, now."

Harry's jaw drops before his eyes turn up accusingly. "Hold on. How does this tie in with _me? _You_ said—_"

He gets a flick on his forehead scar _again_. (Harry really needs to break Hades' habit of forehead-flicking to divert his attention. It's getting _really_ annoying.) "You're a smart kid, Harry. I've gifted you plenty of clues already and I'm sure you've realized by now that I'm not leaving any time soon. You'll have plenty of time to figure it out yourself."

Harry knows he's just made a sound comparable to that of a strangled cat thrown off a second-story balcony, but he doesn't really care at the moment. "_Haaaaae-deeeez_—"

(On the inside, Harry cheers. He finally has a name to mangle up irrevocably when he's stressed with his tutor/mentor/family/friend and it feels _awesome. _No wonder Dudley always does it with "mum" or "dad" or "Aunt Marge".)

Hades winces. "Okay, kit, if you don't shut your trap in the next second, I'm waking up the walrus _and _I'll postpone our trip by a couple of days —_after _your letter."

Harry snaps his mouth closed with a click. "You wouldn't."

A wicked grin stretches across Hades' face, and Harry can't help but wonder if _he _could pull that dastardly look off. Then he blinks a couple of times and marvels — did he just think up the word _dastardly?_

Harry pipes up without second thought. "Hey, Hades, when you were my age, did you think up words like, 'dastardly?' And, while we're at it, what about, 'irrevocably?'"

The grin wipes off Hades' face and Harry almost laughs because he's sure he just gave his Shade some mental whiplash before he's able to track down Harry's train of thought. (Hades is actually quite good at putting himself in other people's shoes, Harry's noticed.)

"Honestly Harry? I don't think I even _knew _the meaning of those words until I _graduated_ Muggle high school literature."

Harry blushes at the unspoken praise.

"Which reminds me — do you want to continue your Muggle studies during your school year?" Hades tilts his head to the side, a habit of thought. "It'll be double, almost triple your schoolwork, but as with most things that need effort and resolve, it'll pay off in the end. I knew a few Muggleborn wizards and witches that did it during their Wizarding school year because their parents wanted some semblance of normality — but to do so, you and I will need to fill out a few contracts to file into the Ministry, at least a week before your first term starts. They'll either issue you a special time-turner for you to go to some public school in Dufftown or give you a Muggleborn teacher over the holidays, though the latter's a bit more expensive. I could probably do it myself."

Harry furrows his brows and tilts his head to the side in confusion. "Why would I need to continue my Muggle studies out of school? I thought there was a whole _class _at Hogwarts for Muggle studies!"

He's quite sure, since he pretty much memorized the Hogwarts Brochure when he first heard of "the greatest magical academy in Europe to teach Wizardry and Witchcraft." Of course, Harry didn't really put much into that statement when he's only heard of two or three other schools that even _exist _in the continent.

Hades shakes his head and sighs, snatching back Harry's attention. "Muggle Studies is exclusively a third year class — and anyway, it's a bit of a joke at Hogwarts, these last few years. All they do in the class is introduce 'new' innovations and hire Pure-blood teachers to try and explain what everything does, or how much better magic is compared to electricity." Hades grimaces. "They still mispronounce 'telephone' as 'fellytone' and… well, I think that speaks for itself."

"You mean they learn about new technology and _everyday_ stuff in that class?" Harry doesn't even bother to multitask anymore and solely focusses on Hades. "Then what about maths? And English? And—and any other core studies? Do they have a health or physical education?" asks Harry in incredulous rapid-fire.

"Like I already alluded to, any rich families are able to hire tutors for that during the summer, and if they can't afford it, parents home school them during the holidays."

"So they don't count as credits for anything? Our non-magical education is _recreational?"_

Hades nods, waving his hand absentmindedly to finish up the rest of the house chores. "Yes. The magical community doesn't give much to Muggle ways, even though they'd all be a blubbering mess if they didn't know how to speak proper English or how to count and multiply," he taps his chin thoughtfully. "Usually they just learn the basics, what any average Muggle cashier could understand, and sometimes even less than that unless their job needs them to know more — like a journalist for the Daily Prophet would need to be well-versed in their language or a hands-on spellcrafter who'd need a relative grasp on science — the physical world, biology and so on."

Harry gapes. "What? _An average cashier?_ Why would they—?"

Hades runs a hand through his hair with a sigh, sitting down on the couch, though facing behind it. "Harry, you have to remember: the magical community focuses on _magical _classes because all the Muggle ways can be substituted with less logical means."

Harry grins behind the couch, tucking his arms on the backrest and laying his head on top. "Man, I'm sure glad I'm a wizard then. It'd suck to study stuff all day when I can fix everything up with a bit of magic—ow!"

Hades clonks him on the head with an unimpressed look.

"Not everything can be solved with magic, kit. And even then, magic isn't as _easy _as you think. It takes more than a decade to become a certified Muggle medical practitioner, and that's more or less comparable to a licensed Mediwizard. Then there are the specialized Muggle doctors — which are the general equivalents of general and specialized Healers." Hades crosses his arms. "Medical magic and medical science take years to study Harry, and even if wizards live longer, no one likes to waste time when they already have something more or less equal to the other. That's the _only _reason."

Harry pauses. He supposed it does make sense. Why study two things that'll have the same result in the end? Suddenly a thought occurs to him. "Hey, you told me before that pure-blood families sometimes married their cousins… right?"

"Yes."

"So… wizards have no idea about genetics work and stuff, do they?"

Hades hesitates. "From my accounts, it's doubtful. Whole pure-blood families still continue to run themselves extinct these days, however…" Hades takes a moment to animate the feather duster and send it over to the second bedroom upstairs with some still-wet wipes. "I think many are noticing that bringing in new blood, even Muggle-born blood, allow for easier carriage for children and create less… abnormalities."

Harry immediately thinks of Rolf, and instantly feels guilty and goes quiet. "My—my mum's a Muggle-born right? And she married dad — who's a pure-blood."

Hades nods slowly, looking unsure for once at Harry's reluctance.

"Did… did my dad only marry her — for her — for new blood?"

Hades blinks and a strange smile stretches across his face as he leans down and ruffles Harry's head. "No, kit. They married for love; cross my heart," he gestures across his chest with two fingers, which then zoomed into Harry's forehead with a flick. Harry scowled.

"In fact, I think their parents — at least Mrs Potter — threw a fit when James proposed. They were a proud pure-blood family before, the Potter family that is, and somehow, they'd escaped marrying any third-cousin or closer until Charles Potter married Dorea Black, and _everyone's _related to the Black family since they've intermarried for generations."

Harry pulls a face at the thought of marrying family. Wouldn't it be weird if you had the same features and stuff?

Hades quirks a slight grin, "You know, _I _married my third cousin."

Wide-eyed, Harry blinks at Hades with incredulity. "Wait. _What? _Don't you realize that's _inbreeding _and your kid'll be all_—_"

A flick to his forehead shuts him up. Harry swears, if he gets a scar the size of the man's fingerprint… "Kit, I think you'll need to reread some of those genetics books you happened across. Third cousins and up generally won't have problems, but anything below that," here, Hades made a grimace, "yeah, I realize what happens. I actually didn't know we were related until after a few years into our marriage. But Harry, I've seen …closer intermarriages first hand and their progeny — you will too, once you're in Hogwarts. But I think, although it's not proven, magic somehow gives the Wizarding World a lower chance of …irregularities than if Muggles intermarried. Not to say that it should be _allowed _at this age — but magic is correcting a majority of wizard problems. Thank Merlin we still have those priests and sages to keep the world balance…"

Harry tilts his head to the side, waiting for elaboration, but nothing was forthcoming. Before Harry could ask about these "priests and sages," he heard a click from the hallway and immediately grabs his broom and dustpan.

"Harry! Go preheat the stove — we're eating three-meat lasagna this evening," Aunt Petunia barks, putting down the grocery bags on the foyer bench as she took off her jumper, not noticing the strange lengthening of her nephew's shadow.

"Got it, Aunt Petunia," replies Harry, leaning the broomstick on a nearby wall and seamlessly dodging the charging Dudley aimed for the fridge.

Then a thought occurs to Harry as he takes the plastic bags into the kitchen: when does Hades even eat? Does he even eat? How does he survive without food?

_How did he survive all these years without food!?_

* * *

_Notes_ (posted 27/09/14)  


Back in the summer, a lot of family crisis stuff happened, so, uh, sorry for the late chapter. If you spot any grammatical mistakes or typos, point 'em out - I have no beta whatsoever. Also, I'm back in school now, so updates are... going to be sporadic. Mood, time, etc will be deciding factors. Keep an eye on AO3 for quickie chapters if you're impatient.


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